Efficient Inter Mode Prediction Based on Model Selection and Rate Feedback for H.264/AVC

H.264/AVC is a standard developed for various low-complexity video applications and high-definition television. To improve coding performance, H.264/AVC may optionally adopt the rate-distortion optimization (RDO) method to find the best encoding mode among various inter and intra modes. However, the exhaustive RDO search among different modes increases the H.264/AVC encoder complexity and limits its application. In this paper, we propose an inter mode prediction algorithm for P slices based on spatial and temporal consistency analysis to reduce the complexity of the RDO computation. We apply the stochastic method to analyze the spatial consistency and use rate information for temporal consistency. The experimental results show a 0.03 peak signal-to-noise ratio loss, a 0.87% bit rate increase, and a 58.39% encoding time reduction on average.